Is it me or are there many unreliable USB flash drives?

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Rod Speed wrote:
Ant wrote

Either I'm having bad luck

Or are mistreating them in some way.

Maybe. I am trying to figure out why so many failed USB flash drives on
my side.


Some just stopped working and not detected at all by any
computers (desktops and (laptop/notebook)s and OSes
(Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows).

That is the result I got with the only one that has failed.
I haven't even bothered to open it up to check how its
failed, whether it is a simple mechanical failure, dry
joint/cracked trace etc or what.

Their cases are hard to open up! Looking at their USB connectors, they
look clean and fine to me. No bad odors like burning smell. The only
thing noticeable is their temperatures are hot after long usages.


Some are detected but no disk volumes seen and
can't even partition and format. Some seen and
connected, but can't been fully formatted.

What's up?

Either bad luck or the way you are treating them static wise.

The kids don???t do anything special with them static wise
and the houses are all carpeted, 3 different houses. And
at least one of them has full aircon used in the winter for
heating which can be a static problem. One other has gas
heating and I forget what the third one has heating wise.
I've only been in there in other than the winter, moving
some heavy furniture in there.

No carpets here, but a few rugs. Mostly hard floors (never dropped
them). Temperatures can be hot (up to 90F degrees in the room during
heat waves). The two drives that went bust was during the cold and wet
temperatures (60F degrees and light rain outside; 70F degres indoor).


lots of physically moving around, etc.?

These get plenty of that, usually in cars but not always.

Most of the times, the tiny drives are in my wallets to be carried
where-ever I go. They don't move around much in the crowded tight wallet
in my front pockets. That should be OK, right? I have seen people put
them on their keychains and appear to be more abusive since they hit
desks. tables, etc. but they still work.


Is Lexar brand any good as shown in
http://www.salescircular.com/ca/computer/usbstp.shtml web page
from the local So(uthern) CA(lifornia) stores (Fry's Electronics, Best
Buy, Costco, Walmart, Target, Office Depot, Staples, etc.).

Yes, some of the ones I use are Lexars.

Hmm, I might try Lexars next. Or maybe well known brands won't metter to
me since Sandisk failed for me in the past. :/


Of course they must be returnable if the drives die
quickly again within return times. :P

Thank you in advance.

Still smirking.

I will always smirk.
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and living by my own values. I might have stepped on a few ants - and a
few other things as well - but I've never hurt anybody." --Kiri Te
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